BD-0076 How to Fly a WWI Rotary Motor Fighter Sopwith Pup

With Kark Erickson from the Owlshead Museum. From the archives of the San Diego Air and Space Museum.
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[@steveholmes11]

Love the way the speaker is so relaxed about the entire process.

[@SuperSeriouSam]

Ignition only, no throttle and a revolving engine. Now that really is, "feel the force" Great interview . The man knows and loves what he does .

[@JimForeman]

I built a replica Fokker Eindecker in 1970 and that thing was a real squirrel to fly with that all-flying elevator and rudder. I did use a modern engine (Cont A-65) and went to ailerons instead of wing warping. As Tony Spezio (one of the pilots at Old Rhinebeck and the only one to fly it there) said, No wonder they lost the war.

[@JimForeman]

The engine didn't "burn" castor oil but sprayed it everywhere. The pilot both breathed as well as absorbed the castor oil into his system with the same results as taking a couple spoons full. They claim that was the reason pilots wore brown trousers.

[@chitlika]

Pilots were issued half a bottle of Gin per day to counteract the "Shits" and the stomach cramps that went with them .couple that with what they would drink in the mess at meals and in the evenings you realize they must have been monumentally pissed nearly all the time Air Ace Billy Bishop mentions this at great length in his biography

[@seeharvester]

On the plus side, the pilots were never constipated.

[@owenlewis8006]

Great explanatory vid of this fascinating machine!

[@tuntavern5757]

If you've never been owls head museum is a treat.

[@stevepercival4774]

Very informative big thumbs up captain

[@pauligrossinoz]

Awesome! Thanks! 😁👍

[@505197]

It never fails to amaze me that they had the crank stationary and spun the whole shebang around it. Talk about doing it the hard way. Then add a oil system that is total loss, slinging it all over the place. The must have had a crankshaft that looked like a bent telephone pole to support all that spinning weight.

[@petermangold4003]

+505197 Yes, but the beauty of these was that there is no reciprocating motion. That's why they run so smooth.

[@leifvejby8023]

+Peter Mangold True, but people have difficulties believing it! The cylinders rotate around the crank shaft, and the pistons and connection rods rotate around the crank pin. But people still can't see it!

[@AlanFrance21]

The real reason is weight. You need no water cooling and since the cylinders are rotating, much less finning on them. This is a very low weight engine for 90hp - bearing in mind that ic engines were less than 20 years into development at this time, and Kittyhawk was only 12 years before. And the plane can take off with no warm up. The Camel outflew even the much vaunted Focker Tripe with an experienced pilot [ that precession gave them a turning edge], and it was still in front line service after the war.

[@JorisKoolen]

What a great video, thanks for sharing!

[@stulynn2005]

I just saw the inventor at 96 do a very good interview explaining the same things. He said the Camel was tougher to fly

[@aeronca4022]

yeah loved it wish there was more

[@JimForeman]

When I was looking around for a suitable ship to build, I wanted to avoid the usual biplane with German crosses on it. I settled on the Fokker E-III because of its history and ease of construction. The thing that bothered me was the aerodynamics of the ship were at least five years out of date. It used wing warping for roll control which was just too far out so I designed it with a more logical airfoil and ailerons, I figured I could contend with the all-flying tail surfaces which were necessary for the proper looks. Even though the ability to aim the airplane gave it the nickname of the Fokker Scourge, it was still five or six years behind everything else in aerodynamics and controls.

[@sopwithpuppy]

A few errors, but a good video. Sopwith Pup was a great aircraft for its time.

[@augnkn93043]

Thanks

[@AlanFrance21]

And no one mentions that all that castor oil, [ that mom used to dose us with for constipation ], got into the pilots as well as on them, with the result that the fliers had constant diahorrea, aka 'the sh its'. Rotary engines like this ran flat out, that rotating crankcase/fixed crankshaft meant no throttle was possible. Hence blipping the throttle with the magneto switch to control engine speed. If you want more information on WWI fighters and the horrors of war, try getting hold of some old Biggles books by Captain W E Johns. He strips the romance right out of killing young men to suit the whimsy of politicians, without denigrating their heroism.

[@sugarnads]

belson alan biggles for the win

[@Bent0008]

Blackberry brandy to be specific.

[@silentotto5099]

As good an excuse as any for having a drink after your flight... "To.. Uhh... Umm... To counter act the castor oil. Sure... That's the ticket... The castor oil."

[@silentotto5099]

belson alan "Rotary engines like this ran flat out, that rotating crankcase/fixed crankshaft meant no throttle was possible." Ahhhh... I'd always kinda wondered about why the blip switches. But now that you point out the difficulty in putting a throttle on an engine that was spinning like these were, it's obvious. I was more accustomed to thinking about radial engines that were mounted stationary, and didn't make the leap that these ones weren't.

[@funkyalfonso]

belson alan This is very rarely mentioned. May I suggest the wonderful book about the RFC...'Winged Victory' by V.M. Yeates. A pity the bloody plane wasn't really shown. WTF.

[@SuperTastyone]

After flying one of those planes up to 18,000 ft for up to 3 hrs on a combat patrol. . .then getting back down on a very windy winters day,. . .well, that would make most pilots. . . Hit the Bottle!

[@perimetrfilms]

I thought to turn left you need to out the nose down but turning right was very easy as long as you applied full rudder. I think he got mixed up. But I might be wrong.

[@philipmatthews5615]

I too thought he got a little mixed up especially when he said on take-off you needed full left rudder so with the torque of the engine running clockwise from the pilots point of view I would have thought full right rudder, then again I could be wrong, just using logic.

[@sugarnads]

Funny...anyone who read biggles as a kid knows a camel turns RIGHT like a flash...

[@k3D4rsi554maq]

A really interest plane.

[@k3D4rsi554maq]

8archived8

[@Auvoelias]

I would like to hear the idle sound of this engine.

[@brucebeauvais1324]

Aleksei Mikojan It won't idle. The engine is either at full throttle or off. Engine speed is controlled by cutting ignition with the blip switch he points out. That gives a rotary the distinctive sound at the start of the video.

[@TheEmeraldMenOfficial]

That’s called silence.

[@craighagenbruch3800]

Did they have altitude meters? If not wow could they estimate? Their height?

[@DonMeaker]

Manometers are simple pressure measuring devices, from that you can compute a very good estimate of altitude.

[@fredkruse9444]

How does the pilot fly at 18,000 feet without oxygen?

[@jackaubrey8614]

VERY carefully! Towards the end of the war, combat was ocurring more often at higher altitudes - the Germans in particular experimented with rudimentary oxygen systems for their crews but they weren't popular due to the possibility of explosion caused by battle damage. 18,000 feet is a long way to fall when youhave no parachute...

[@petermangold4003]

The foremost advantage of a rotary engine has not been mentioned. It is that there is no reciprocating motion. The pistons travel in a circle and not up and down! This makes the engine very smooth running with little vibration.

[@leneanderthalien]

the main advantage in he's times was the cylinder cooling and low weight, the vibrations are the same as on a radial

[@brinx8634]

You are misinformed and do not understand how a rotary aircraft engine operates. It is a reciprocating engine. Pistons move back and forth (reciprocate) but crankshaft is stationary and the engine revolves around it. The propeller is attached to the whirling engine. It was the lightest, simplest, and most reliable engine available at the time but it was a dead end design.

[@petermangold4003]

Think about it! The pistons move back and forth relative to the cylinders, but relative to any outside point they describe a circle. This is why the engine runs so smoothly.

[@billycaspersghost7528]

the pistons certainly reciprocate as in any configuration of standard engine.the fact that the crankcase rotates rather than the crank is opposite to a radial but it is still a reciprocating engine and would be subject to any out of balance forces that cause vibration.

[@pimpompoom93726]

Does anyone manufacture rotary engines today? Pretty much all the replica WW1 fighters today seem to use radial engines.

[@dubsy1026]

There's some people making Gnome Monosoupapes

[@olejoergenmalm16]

It was the finest until "Bloody April".

[@WarblesOnALot]

G'day, Yay Team ! Um, the only Sopwith Pup I ever worked on was VH-PSP, built by Transavia for Pacific Films in 1978, when Neil Cottee was CEO/MD, & it had an Armstrong Siddley Gennet Major Radial Engine...; it's in the Australian War Memorial these days, last I heard... Anyway, what Karl here had to say about Gryoscopic Precession was not correct...; possibly with an 80 Hp Le Rohne, at low RPM he's not experiencing enough of an effect for it to have impressed him, as he stated, but in fact it was the Pup's ability to fly in a balanced fashion despite the Rotary Engine which *so* endeared it to Pilots of the time. In fact, quoting Captain Norman Macmillan OBE MC AFC, in "Great Aircraft", published in 1960, when describing the 130 Hp Clerget Camel (and *yes*, Clerget & Le Rohne & Bentley all revolved in the same direction...!), on page 63 states...; "When turning steeply to the left the Camel's Nose rose, and when turning steeply to the right it was forced down. In the Left turn the pilot had to apply bottom rudder to prevent the Camel from stalling. And in the Right turn he had to apply *full* top rudder to prevent it from falling into a spin. *Whichever way he turned he had to apply rudder with his Left Foot* . The pull of the gyroscopic forces ....increased the rate of turn to the *Right*...." Other sources cite the Camel being able to make 3 Right-hand 360-degree Turns in the same time it could perform 1 full Turn to the Left, whereas the Albatross D-Va (with it's "Stationary" Engine) could fly 2 turns in the same time, Left or Right. Perhaps Karl is confuzzling Gyroscopic Precession with Torque, which *does* yaw Camels & Pups to the Left, when accelerating on the ground, but only because it presses the Left Tyre harder into the Runway than it presses the Right side... It's a tricky double-act to tease out, and underconstumble which is doing what...; but, I hope this helps...(?). ;-p Ciao !

[@WarblesOnALot]

Adrian Larkins G'day, Thanks, Well, yeah, they were tricky to fly..., but I WANT one nevertheless...; and if I was given a week each with a Tiger Moth and then an Avro 504k, followed by a Sopwith Pup to work up to it, then I'd gladly have a go at a Camel...! However I have "form" when it comes to flying infamously "unpleasant" Aeroplanes, technically the Wright Brothers had a better Aircraft in 1903 than what took me for my first Solo in 1978, because they had 12.5 Hp, 2 big Propellers, Double-Surface Aerofoils with built-up internal Wing-Ribs, and 3-Axis Controls using Wing-Warping...; whereas if you search "8Hp, 1975, Red Baron Skycraft Scout...", you'll find it had Single-Surface Dacron Wings with cambered-Battens in Sail-Pockets, & Elevators and Rudder both Joystick-actuated, with lots of Dihedral & a Bicycle-Chain Reduction-Drive to the single 3Ft Diameter Propeller.... (last time I saw it, the bloke my father sold it to had subsequently lent it to the Inverell Transport Museum who chained it to their Ceiling...). So, nothing I ever tried afterwards was quite so marginal as the old Scout, though an Ultralight Motorglider was bad enough that I flew it inverted and going backwards over the Fencepost I failed to clear, that was my own fault for trying a Downwind Takeoff in a too-short Paddock, rather than pulling the Wings off and retrieving the VJ-24w with a Trailer...; & I'm not silly enough to try that twice, and certainly not in a Camel... I always wanted a Camel, I grew up on Camel fantasies... My Father's Uncle flew a Camel with 4 Squadron AFC in October 1918, on his 1st flight over the Lines he "became separated from his Flight" (got lost or wandered off), attacked a pair of LVG 2-Seaters by himself & shot down one of them (!) , then 6 Albatrosses dived down & chased him into a Cloud with Bullet-holes in his Fuel-Tank (didn't see the Escort lurking overhead, and got himself ambushed), then when he emerged into clear Air a lump of Shrapnel from an Archie-burst knocked him unconscious, and he recovered in time to crash on the British lines (his Beginner's Luck held good)..., and all that got into the History of the AFC that I read as a Kid... I've only flown in 1 Cessna, a 172..., but I assembled 3 152 Aerobats out of a 40-Ft Shipping Container, and pulled the Ferry-Tanks out of a 210 Stationair which had come from 'Frisco to Hawaii to Fiji to Noumea to Brisbane to Bankstown Airport at Sydney where I was a Tarmac-Terrier... And though I haven't ever repaired the Motorglider, and I refused a flight in a Boeing PT-19 Stearman a fortnight ago (my son took me to an Airshow, and he and his sister wanted to pay for me to go up..., but I was having too much fun with 3 Cameras on the ground...), because I'm a Greenie & I can't justify the Carbon emissions...; but if I were offered a flight in a Clerget Camel I'd go into training to get myself into condition and give it a go..., and go on a guilt-trip about the Greenhouse Effect afterwards..., because "a Camel is to die for !" as they say, Have a good one, ;-p Ciao !

[@keithwalker6892]

The sop camel was the fighter.

[@claytonpozzer]

como pode ter gente que dá unlike? devem ter problemas mentais serios.

[@doktorbimmer]

#Rotary engine

[@Trumplican]

RADIAL

[@treesixtyeight]

Rotary. There are videos on line showing them uncovered.

[@goojedooje660]

I think these planes came from New Zealand omarka

[@tertommy]

se5a did not kill the guy flying it

[@gregb1276]

You're confusing the Pup with the Camel. Camels killed a lot of young pilots in flying accidents. Many pilots quite loved the way the Pup flew.

[@jimmytiler5522]

all talk no action

[@edwardpate6128]

All that and no engine startup! Disappointing!

[@Steve-vl5mg]

I can see the interest..just cant see the fun in the danger and pain of flying a kite of death ..they are fragile death traps

[@hcsd48]

Is there an aircraft in this? All I see is a guy talking.

[@yahatinda]

Lose the little boy aeroplane pilot hat, looks pretty crazy.

[@andremarais2706]

A radial not a rotary

[@rltrahan1325]

If your referring to the engine in this video it's a rotary engine LeRhone 80, the entire engine system rotated with the propeller, these are the first production engines used in flight. A radial is a fixed multi cylinder engine with rotating crank shaft in the center to which the propeller is attached and is the only part that rotates, that's roughly defined but you get the point.

[@leneanderthalien]

No THIS is a rotary (the entire engine block turns), and a Wankel IS NOT a rotary engine: it's a rotary PISTON engine (name give from Felix wankel himself: "rotations KOLBEN (=piston) motor! The main rotary engines builders was Gnome, LeRhone (twice formed the actual SNECMA (Safran group) in 1945) , and Clerget, all the other copied more or less this engines

[@andremarais2706]

It is a name thing then. No need to educate.

[@spammy555]

No need to educate those who don't wish to be educated.

[@doktorbimmer]

+Andre Marais *THIS IS A ROTARY... invented by Felix Millet in 1892.*

[@stevepercival4774]

Very informative big thumbs up captain